A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a physical world process or system over time. Simulating a process or a system usually first requires that a model be developed; this model representing the key characteristics of the selected physical or abstract system or process. Simulation is used in many contexts, such as simulation of technology for performance optimization, education, video games, safety engineering, testing, training, etc.
Due to the sometimes complicated, and relatively expensive nature of training on physical world equipment, simulation has become a commonly used alternative across many industries. The industry of interest, in the present disclosure, is the industry of maintenance of vehicles, for example the maintenance of an aircraft or a tank. Most of the times, the simulations performed on an equipment simulator include pre-built scenarios by which to teach trainees and to test their knowledge and abilities. Such equipment simulators are intended to create a safe and cost effective alternative to training on live equipment.
Furthermore, the simulations can be customized, by adding new scenarios or modifying existing scenarios. For example, in the maintenance of an aircraft, a trainer may want to add new parts to simulate a different scenario in the maintenance of the aircraft; or the trainer may want to update the version of a part that has been modified by the manufacturer. In both cases, the customization of the equipment simulator is generally performed through an update of a simulation software executed by the simulator. Consequently, whenever a modification or a customization of the equipment simulator is sought, at least a portion of the simulation software need to be recoded in order for the modifications or the customization to be implemented by the equipment simulator.
Therefore, modification and customization of the equipment simulator is generally complex, time consuming and resource intensive, because of the necessity to partially recode the simulation software. There is thus a need for a modeling tool and method for dynamically generating a maintenance simulation of a vehicle.